May 31, 2010

I have always had an over-active libido; even as a young girl. I managed to find a boy at my school, (1 year older), who was mutually curious about sex. We weren’t a “couple” by any sense of the word– it was our secret. His parents were away a lot, so I usually went to his house to fool around. We usually got naked and did a lot of oral sex activities. Despite my eagerness to explore the opposite sex, I still managed to maintain that I didn’t want to lose my virginity that young; or to this guy!

The time I remember the most was a rare occurrence that he came to my house. My bed was positioned under a window that faced the front of the house. I straddled his face and he went down to munch-town while I watched out the window the entire time to see if my parents came home. I was 12 years old.

May 29, 2010

In our first year at University, we lived in a townhouse-style complex for students. During the first week, everyone gets along and tries to make nice, and then soon after, culling the herd quickly begins. Even though we filled out lengthy personality questionnaires in an attempt to place us with “similarly-minded” people, instead, they succeeded in placing the 6 most opposite girls to live together in a house. Through the chaos, back-stabbing, anger and tears, there was one thing that we remained united on, and that was the total creepiness of a guy that frequented our place.

At first, he would just come over to ‘hang-out’, which he then rapidly started growing roots directly from his ass and into our couch. None of us liked him; there was something not-quite-right about him. Even when we all went to bed, he remained; having ignored all the not-so-subtle hints about him getting the hell out of our house. We were never brave enough to just come out and say it either. Then, he progressed to staying at our place at all hours, helping himself to our coffee, and smoking all of our cigarettes.

So, OK, now he seemed like a typical mooch, right? Well, not exactly. After about 2 long months of this, the next stage of his comfort level kicked in. He would come in to our house without knocking, give a quick wave to whoever was in the common area, “Hey!” And then go straight upstairs for about 10 minutes. We thought that was weird enough in itself, but it took us about 3 or 4 times of this occurrence to finally figure out what he was doing... He was coming over to our place JUST TO TAKE A SHIT and then (depending on whether or not he had class), he would take off right after, leaving nothing behind but a lingering stench and streak marks in our toilet. What a fucking weirdo!

Since bodily functions are always a sensitive topic for most people, especially us North Americans, we decided to focus on the coffee and cigarette factor. The guys’ house next door also had a problem with this guy, but men are much more forward about these situations; they told him to get the fuck out, and then chased him down the street with a broken beer bottle! In true feminine form, instead of confronting him, we posted a note on our front door that said, “No Coffee? No Cigarettes? No Entry!”

Well, of course, the first time he came to the door and read the sign, he went totally mad! It was kind of terrifying. He was yelling incoherently and occasionally we heard phrases like, “I’m too stressed to deal with this!” and “My mom is on strike, you know!” (She was a teacher, and the strike only lasted 3 weeks; we weren’t talking about the fucking Miners’ Strike of ’84 or anything.) But he mostly directed his insane ranting in the direction of his ACTUAL home, and he stormed away. He was probably busting to take a crap and couldn’t stick around to argue with us.

May 25, 2010

It was my first year of University, first semester; I was 19. I was hot and heavy in the middle of some foreplay with my “then-boyfriend”. We would often do some “quick dips” (as I liked to call them) during the pre-game warm up. If it isn’t self-explanatory to everyone, basically, it is when he would start intercourse for literally one second, without the condom on yet, and then pull out. It felt good and was a fun part of our routine...until that day. After the second or third “quick dip”, he kept kissing me, but his dick went limp.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing; I finished,” he said, nonchalantly.

“You fucking did WHAT? ...WHERE? ...INSIDE ME?”

In the same unconcerned tone, he replied, “Oops, sorry.”

HOLY SHIT! What the hell?! My mind was racing. Now, even though I knew him pretty well, I wasn’t too concerned with the STD factor, but not completely 100% sure. Then there’s the whole PREGNANCY factor, as I wasn’t on the pill at the time. And finally, let me bring up the fact that I didn’t give him fucking permission to do that! I felt pretty violated; especially when he didn’t seem to care, or think it was a big deal. IT WAS TO ME! Even though I was far from abstinent, I liked to think I was at least saving THAT aspect of sex for a more serious partner, perhaps the guy that was going to end up being my husband. Well, I guess I can scrap that idea now... thanks, Asshole! I was super pissed off.

We pretty much broke up after that. The entire next week, I didn’t sleep at all. I was brought up to believe that if could happen to you, it probably will. Fan-fucking-tastic! When my period was about 10 minutes late, I was off to the school nurse in a mad dash. I couldn’t even wait to go to the store to get a test. Luckily, they did them there instantly, and it was free!

NOT pregnant and no STDs. PHEW! A wave of relief came over my whole body. I was super lucky and I sure learned my lesson. I saw my freshly-ex-boyfriend that afternoon and told him that I took the test. He actually had the nerve to accuse me of lying about the pregnancy scare to make him feel bad...like it was all about him. I said it before, and I’ll say it again... ASSHOLE!

May 24, 2010

Looking back, I never thought my life was very interesting…it was tough but I think everyone has their own set of issues to deal with. Mine started at the ripe old age of 16; high school, grade 10. In walked the new kid, handsome and mysterious… and lots of girls I knew thought so too. I introduced myself and 2 weeks later, we were dating. I remember that he asked me to marry him when I was 17 he was 19. It was sweet and we always knew we’d be together forever, so that was never a concern, but who knew our lives were about to change dramatically.

We had been together for 3 years and guess what…. I got pregnant. I was 19, and scared shitless. I think the moment where I had to tell him was the most frightening (at the time). We talked about it and realized that there was no possible way we could have a child. We were just too young and immature; we had nothing. I remember I must have gotten pregnant sometime in February, because I was about 10 weeks along when I went to the ultrasound…by myself. Sounds depressing right? My theory on that was I didn’t want anyone else to have to see the baby that I was going to abort.

So sometime in May I headed out to the ultrasound, got suited up and the technician put the “goo” on my belly. I remember that moment like it was yesterday; it’s etched in my brain so clearly that I can still feel the tears pour down my face as the technician very clearly said, “OH MY GOD IT’S TWINS!”

It is amazing how 5 simple words in the English dictionary seem so harmless on their own, but when they are put together to form that one sentence, they can change your life so dramatically. It felt like a thousand knives stabbing me all over at once, and then I felt empty. Countless different scenarios went through my brain within about 5 seconds, but it always went back to the same one, “How am I going to raise twins?”

The technician printed off three pictures of the babies for me. As I drove over to my boyfriend’s house, still crying, I held onto the photos. I actually remember that he was in the upstairs bathroom and as I walked through the door I could see him at the top of the stairs. He saw that I was crying and asked me what was wrong. I opened my mouth to speak but absolutely nothing came out. Still clutching the photos, I walked up the stairs and handed them to him. If you’ve ever seen a twin ultrasound, it very clearly says “Twin A” and “Twin B”. If I could have paused and relived a moment in my life, it would have been this one. It’s truly amazing how two people can look at one another and know exactly what the other is thinking without saying a word.

And so began the rest of our lives. That was May; we were married in July, and the twins were born in September. (By the way, we’ve never called them “the twins”) My husband started college the month the babies were born– you want to talk stress??? Holy crap! I was 19 years old, in a two bedroom apartment, raising twins (and nursing them) while my 21 year old husband was in school. Nightmare! We had so much help from family and friends to make it through the tough times… and we sure had our share of them. I like to think of our story as rags to riches (we aren’t rich), but we definitely worked hard to get where we are today. Mostly thanks to my husband; he worked so very hard all of those years to make our lives better. I am now a thirty two year old mom of 12 year old twins and I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone’s.

I’ve been asked this question before: “If you had a chance to do things differently, would you?” And here’s the answer, “Hell no.” Why? Because if you have ever experienced the incredible feeling you get when you look into your children’s eyes and say to yourself, “What was I doing before I had you? I can’t remember what my life was like when you weren’t in it.” To me, that means they were always supposed to be here; that’s just the way it was meant to be.

May 18, 2010

My best friend decided to switch to the Senior Public in our town, while I remained at the 1-thru-8 Catholic school. It seems as though she picked up a lot of “skills” shortly after she transferred, and then would enlighten me with her new knowledge, notably shoplifting. Turns out, I was GREAT at it. I was a natural-born, sticky-fingered, over-privileged cliché. I was completely addicted to the adrenaline rush, which never seemed to deplete the more I stole. I just took bigger and more risky things. This was also before CCTV was everywhere, and only really Music Stores had the electronic security systems (which were no match for me [insert evil laugh here]). I would usually go with a friend and we would buy a 25¢ bag from the department store and then completely fill it. My mom never questioned anything, mainly because I had a job and was making about $50 a week (which was a lot for a 14 year old).

There was an entire year where I was out of control. I would even steal when I was shopping with my grandparents. When I started high school, I was taking orders from other kids for perfumes, clothes, hats, jewellery, makeup, you name it. The perfume was my forte, particularly anything Calvin Klein. Then, my life as a career petty thief came smashing to a halt.

The girlfriend I was with that day took pride in thinking that older men found her sexy... so when we were in the parking lot of the department store and a man approached us, she distinctively assumed he was trying to pick her up. “What’s in the bags, ladies?” I started to feel a bit sick to my stomach, like it was on fire and getting hotter and heavier by the second. I knew what was going on. My friend was still in some kind of pathetic denial and was performing a disturbing flirt routine on this man who was at least 3 times our age. He then grabbed the bags and said, “I’m pretty sure there are items in here that you young ladies did not pay for, and you are both under arrest!” JESUS FUCKING MURPHY.

I became slightly light-headed and all I could think about was how D-E-A-D I was going to be when my parents found out. I was totally petrified. We were brought into a room in the back of the store and he got our phone numbers to call our parents. My mother showed up first. Her eyes were on fire. I think it was a combination of angry tears and pure hell fire. We got into the car and after a few rounds of yelling the “What were you thinking?” speech, she swore. I had never heard her swear before. “Just you fucking wait until your father gets home!” Oh Shit. I’m actually going to die. He freaks out on me if I chew with my mouth open... what the hell is he going to do with this information? One thing I was certain...that weird vein in the middle of his forehead was totally going to rupture.

Then... days past... and nothing. It was torture. He never confronted me. NEVER. I almost wanted him to just get it over with. Maybe he was just TOO angry or disappointed. It was weird. I was grounded for a month. My official punishment was that I was banned from that particular store (rhymes with Smears) for 1 year and I had to write an essay on shoplifting. The one thing I learned while writing that was that they purposely put items of “interest” in inconspicuous locations to actually encourage shoplifters to take them... and then bust them. That’s twisted! Why not just keep the perfume under glass and everyone goes home happy. I guess the security guard needs to earn his salary somehow.

That day pretty much cured my kleptomania, although I did have isolated lapses during the next couple years. It was hard to stop, and I believe it was an addiction. I think the scare of that day helped, and the reality that the next time I would likely experience the back of a squad car. No thanks!

May 14, 2010

I remember that lunch hour like it was yesterday; it was grade 9. We were standing in the "smoking area", a bunch of us gathered around chatting, smoking cigarettes... the usual stuff and someone pulled out a joint. I had smoked pot before, but it never did anything to me– until this time.

When the joint was being passed around, I of course took a few tokes. After the joint was smoked, a buddy of mine and I went to the cafeteria to get some food. I was at the end of the line and was waiting for the others in front of me to get their food. By the time I got to put my order into one of the "Beaver Ladies" (that's what we called them in high school, I think it was because they worked for a company called Beaver Foods)... Anyway, I was finally at the front of the line; time seemed to go by very slowly. "French fries, please." The Beaver Lady scooped up the fries and handed them to me, almost in perfect slow motion, yet slightly out of focus. I paid for them and made my way over to the condiment table.

My friend was waiting for me and when I brought the fries over my mouth had turned quite dry. “Uh oh,” I thought to myself. I think I'm high! We decided to sit down in the cafeteria to munch on the fries while suddenly my vision and hearing became fantastically distorted. I was getting tunnel vision and all the voices in the cafeteria started to intensify and blend into each other- like I was inside a giant, fucked up human beehive. I was starting to get a little freaked out, so my buddy and I decided to take a walk around the school and try and walk off some of the weed.

After a lengthy walk, the bell rang and it was time to head to classes. I had an exam on Romeo & Juliet that afternoon. I thought about skipping it, but decided that it was too risky and might get caught having smoked marijuana, so I reluctantly went to the exam. (Like attending the class stinking of pot was the better way NOT to get caught? Yeah, ok, so logic does not exist when you’re stoned.) At the time, I thought I actually did alright...turned out I ended up getting 8% on that exam. I did manage to pass the course at the end of the year, but I'll never forget that day.

May 10, 2010

I had my share of conflicts with a couple girls in high school; I wasn’t sheltered into thinking that everyone can be your friend, if you just get to know them. Screw that; it’s a fairytale. Some people just aren’t meant to get along... but nothing had prepared me for Dannie. She was the ultimate caricature of a bitch that teen dramas based their main antagonist on, but Dannie was actually real... and we had to live with her. I would also need to mention her utter lack of morals in the promiscuity department as well. I know I wasn’t exactly a saint either, but she crossed lines that I wouldn’t even think to go near.

She took every opportunity to remind us that she was better than us, mainly due to her parent’s money, but other reasons were applied as required. Some things that came out of her mouth were SO bitchy, I thought sometimes she had to have been joking... but she wasn’t! The deviousness in her method was that she would mostly do it in front of other people, notably guys. If there was no one around to impress or witness her debasing one of us, she was as sweet as a rotten candy apple. We had nicknamed her “Princess”, mainly because it was easier to say than “Psycho Dirty Fucking Bitch Hose Bag”. Here are a couple choice conversations I had with her:

“How much was that watch?” She said with a slight under-tone of disgust, as if she was about to vomit, and then stuck her wrist in my face. “This one was like 400 bucks, like it?”

“Are you still eating an entire can of beans in one sitting?” Then, she turned to the guy that was there and continued (as if I was no longer in the room), “One of those cans takes me, like, 3 days to eat!”

And my personal favourite: “I know YOU couldn’t wear something like this, but how does it look on me?” She tauntingly asked while twirling around in a short, slutty dress.

Dannie’s paradox existed in her ‘environmental hygiene’. She NEVER cleaned up after herself, to the point where fuzzy mold would grow on most of her dirty dishes; and she had a putrid pet rat that she would put out in the hall every night. In the morning, the hall would be littered with wood shavings and rat shit, and she never once attempted to clean it up. Waking up to rat shit was just fantastic first thing in the morning. Gross!

Finally, we had had enough. I piled all the rat crap and moldy dishes and made an impressive mountain in front of her door. She cleaned it up, but never confronted us about it. And she never took a hint from it either; the next week was just as bad as the last. She must have called her mother about it and performed some sob story about how we were so awful to her, and how she was the fragile victim. Boo- Fucking-Hooo! We assumed that because about 2 weeks later, her mother came back to the house with her on that Sunday night. We were all in the main common area when the two of them arrived and proceeded directly up to her room (with zero acknowledgements that we were there). What? No hello? No kisses?

Then, all we heard was her mother gasp loudly and her voice filled with utter horror, “NO WONDER THEY PILE YOUR CRAP IN FRONT OF YOUR DOOR – THIS IS DISGUSTING! I WOULD HATE YOU AS A ROOMMATE TOO. YOU WEREN’T RAISED TO LIVE LIKE THIS. CLEAN THIS SHIT UP NOW!”

As she walked out the front door, she gave us a quick wave, “Sorry ladies!” It was a small consolation.

May 2, 2010

“Aaaaaa-ngela, c-come d-down here!" There stood my mother and father, both pretty liquored up and smirking to each other. In front of my entire family, including some friends of my older brother, my mother proclaimed in a slurred voice, "Hhhh-hey everybody, our Aaaaa-gela is now a wooooo-man! Waaa-hoo!"

She then proceeded to pull out a box of Kotex and a belt (back in the day before self-adhesive pads, we had to use a belt to hold the pads in place). She waved them in the air while doing some drunken form of a taunting hula dance, and then tossed them in my general direction. My mother was almost glowing, but not from pride; rather from the orange sunset that was seeping through the nicotine-stained curtains and shone around her body. She contributed no instructions or comforting maternal words of wisdom, not that I really wanted any in front of everyone; I was embarrassed enough already.

I went through pads like water, changing them constantly and still leaking. This went on for a couple of long, messy years. It was frustrating as hell! I thought maybe I was bleeding an abnormal amount and that there was something wrong with me. I lost count how many pairs of underwear I had to secretly pound, scrub and wash myself before I put them in the general laundry collection. It was my oldest sister that one day happened to see one of my pads in the waste basket; I must not have hid it as well as I normally tried to.

“Hey Ugly! Is that YOUR pad in the garbage? Why is there blood all over the bottom side? Are you an idiot? The cotton side goes UP, plastic side DOWN! BAH-HA-HA!”

Oh my god! I had been wearing them upside down for the past 3 damn years! I FELT TOTALLY STUPID! My ‘loving’ sister thought it was hilarious and burst out of the room to go and find my other older sister to quickly pass on the joke, to which I was the giant BUTT. I not only felt obtuse but was completely humiliated. It’s amazing how I got through those years. With a family like mine, who needed enemies! If it was any consolation, at least after that day I had much cleaner underwear!